


Just One More Time

by SymphonyWizard



Series: Mrs. Sullivan Kent [2]
Category: Smallville
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-28 16:09:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10134572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SymphonyWizard/pseuds/SymphonyWizard
Summary: AU--Clark and Chloe have been a couple since Clark found out that Chloe knew his secret.  Set after Vengeance, Chloe reminisces the past few months since "Arrival."  At Lana's prompting (yes, Lana and Chloe are on good terms with Chloe's relationship with Clark) she goes to the Kent Farm to try and comfort Clark.  Tears, memories, and intimacy rolled into one.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Fallen_Sky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Fallen_Sky/gifts).



It just wasn't fair.  The last few months have been dream.  I know Clark enough that it was a dream for him too.  When he found out I knew his secret, and we shared a kiss in the Yukon of all places, I could tell that a tremendous amount of weight was lifted off his shoulders.  "Thank you for not thinking I'm a freak," were his words through his tears.  I had kissed his tears away and told him, "You are a freak, but you're my freak."  He had to go back to Smallville after that to take care of a few Kryptonians, but when I got home, we started a real relationship.  To a certain point, when I think about it, I am glad that we didn't become a couple when we were in high school.  There was that big secret of him not even being human between us and it would have just been a wall preventing us from having a real relationship.  All that time that I spent trying to force his secrets out of him...I wish I could go back and punch my younger self.  It's not like Clark could stand in the middle of the Talon or Smallville High and scream, "Hey everybody, my name is Clark Kent and I am alien from another planet."  If it weren't for the fact that he could lift a semi over his head like it was a football, quite a few would have thought that it was a one-way ticket to Belle Reeve.  I would have murdered everyone in Kansas before he ended up in the loony bin.

When we officially announced that we were an item, the reactions were polarized.  Martha and Jonathan were astounded when they learned I knew Clark's secret, but not as excited as when they heard we were a couple with Jonathan muttering, "About time you two admitted your feelings for each other."  Lois said something along similar lines, but also promised hellfire and slow, painful death if Clark broke my heart.  As if she could hurt him.  Clark's not invulnerable, but Lois wouldn't know what to use in order to hurt him.  I love my cousin, but even if Clark did break my heart, she would die before she got anywhere near him with a chunk of kryptonite.  Lana was clearly devastated and I'll admit, I felt bad about hurting her, but she was happy for us too.  

I smile as I remember our first date.  He supersped to New York City and, while my dream job has always been the Daily Planet, he surprised me with not only a fancy dinner that had to have taken up a lot of his savings and dress to wear to it, but also a tour of the New York Times.  I had echoed the words I said such a long time ago at our Spring Formal, "Clark Kent, man of mystery."

I will always wish that day ended better, but knowing Clark's secret made his disappearance make so much more sense.  How else would he have been able to save Lana from a bunch of twisters and come out unscathed?  Throughout the rest of high school, our friendship was strained by so many things.  From me being jealous of Lana, to me nearly ruining our friendship for good because of my journalistic curiosity and being manipulated by Lionel Luthor, to being jealous of Lana again.  Things finally turned hopeful, when, during our Senior Prom, he finally noticed me and asked me to dance.  

He had already danced with Lana through that song "You and Me"--which I will forever hate now--but after the song ended, right before their lips met, he saw me sitting all alone and I could hardly believe my eyes when he broke away from her and glided--yes glided over to me and offered me to dance.

"If you think I am going to walk out of here tonight without sharing at least one dance with my best friend, then don't know me at all," were his words.  I already tried to wipe off my mascara-stained cheeks, but fresh tears had broken loose as I accepted his hand.  

We ended up staying in each other's arms until almost everyone, including Lana, who looked extremely hurt, had left.  In Clark's arms, I truly felt like a queen.  And most surprising of all, he kissed me!  I knew he enjoyed it as much as I as did, but I begrudgingly accepted when he asked if I could wait at least until after graduation before we saw where we were at.

And it paid off.  And I got more than I ever hoped for.

When we made love for the first time, it was after his biological dad, Jor-El, resurrected him.  Clark was so scared he would hurt me, but I trusted him and it was beautiful.  And fiery.  We made love in his loft and I still crack up every time I think of how his heat vision went off and set the barn of fire.  I laughed my head off and Clark apologizing over and over again only made me laugh harder.  Even in a relationship, Clark Kent is a woeful prude.  Oddly enough, it's as much of turn-on as it is comic relief to my busy life between working at the Daily Planet basement and going to MetU.  Lucky for him, Martha and Jonathan were out of town that day and he managed to fix the damage before they got home.  Although, Martha swore she smelled something burning.  At least _that_  got Clark to laugh...until Jonathan forced a confession out of him.  

Oh, Jonathan.  When Jonathan won his victory over Lex for State Senator, Clark snuck me out into the back alley at the Talon.  There he asked me marry him.  I wondered why he didn't just proposed to me _inside_  the Talon for everyone to see, but he told me that that was his dad's happy moment and he "didn't want to steal his thunder."  I would have told him that Jonathan wouldn't have cared, that he would be overjoyed to see his son propose to me, but I was too excited, too speechless.  When he slipped that simple, yet beautiful solitaire diamond ring that he secretly bought for me in New York on my finger, I think my heart burst out of my chest.  I pictured that moment so many times growing up, but it actually happening felt out of this world.  I talked him into letting me wear it around my neck until we revealed the news to his parents.  

But they never got the chance.  Things were so perfect and just when Clark and I were arguing laughably who was going to reveal our engagement, a heart attack claimed the man she always wanted for a father-in-law.  I had never seen Clark cry so hard.  Nor seen him so lost.  Seeing him and Martha beg Jonathan to wake up, to not leave them...it's like the world collapsed from its axis and was wandering around, trying to find its way back to something it might never know again.

The day of Jonathan's snowy funeral, I kept my distance.  I knew that Clark needed his space and I was willing to give it to him.  Lana tried to offer her own comfort by holding hand, but he didn't squeeze back.  Lana doesn't know Clark like I do.  Watching him as Jonathan's casket was lowered into the ground, I could see everything about the man I loved breaking piece by piece.  His skin may be tougher than steel, but his heart is as frail as anyone else's.  

Later when he asked if we could hold off our wedding for awhile, I completely understood.  He needed to grieve.  I want to marry him, but I would rather marry him when his heart isn't crippled.  

But he didn't grieve.

When Andrea aka Angel of Vengeance lost Jonathan's watch, Clark became unreasonable.  He almost killed a man.  Lana and I have made peace with each other a long time ago over my relationship with him, and I couldn't help but thank her when she hunted Jonathan's watch down.  

Clark is at home now and I am just sitting in my dorm trying to do homework.  Mostly, I just end up twiddling my pen in my fingers or typing gibberish on my laptop.  

"Has Clark talked to you recently?" asks Lana, who seems to being having better luck her own homework.

I shake my head.  "I haven't spoken to him since he came to me at the Daily Planet."

"You should go check up on him," she suggests.

"Lana this paper is due--"

"Next Wednesday," Lana finishes firmly.  She gets up and before I can ask her what she is doing, she grabs my coat and my purse and pushes me out of the door.  I try to open it only to find it locked.  

"Lana open the door!" I command.

"Okay...after you check up on your fiance and don't bother; I saw that ring around your neck."  

I look down accusingly at the ring that was hidden in my cleavage.  I guess I have no choice.  I slip my coat over my shoulders and leave MetU.  

When the Kent Farm comes into view, it feels weird.  The Kent Farm always invited joy and Clark's boyish charm and Martha Kent's world-famous cookies.  Jonathan's stern, stubborn, but welcoming personality that left everyone wishing he was their father.  Even Lex Luthor at one point got around to his good graces.  Briefly.  

I park beside the barn.  Out of habit, the loft is the first place I check.  He's not there.  I check the house next.  Out of courtesy, I knock.  

"It's open!" I hear Clark's voice say.  The hollowness of his voice breaks my heart.  I open the door and I find him in the living room.  He is sitting in front of the TV.  It's an old home video of him and Jonathan on the family tractor.  I smile.  I silently join him.


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clark shares a few memories with Chloe. Later she tries to cheer him up.

_A final song, a last request_

_A perfect chapter laid to rest_

_Now and then I try to find_

_A place in my mind_

_Where you can stay_

_You can stay awake forever_

_How do I live without the ones I love?_

_Time still turns the pages of the book it's burned_

_Place and time always on my mind_

_I have so much to say_

_But you're so far away_

So Far Away--Avenged Sevenfold

 

_"That way?"_ asks Jonathan on the TV.

_"Hang on tight,"_ says the younger Clark.  Even then, he was dreamy little boy.

" _What, are you kidding?"_ laughs Jonathan.   _"This young man is a man of steel!  Look at him!"_ I couldn't agree more as I watched that little boy drive that tractor that was probably older than Jonathan.

He says he's going to show Clark the back forty of their property, but not before he says. _"Bye bye."_

"Bye bye, Dad," Clark whispers to the TV.  The frame freezes at an image of Jonathan and his warm smile.  "I've been watching this video over and over again," he says to me, though he is still staring at the TV.  

"I remember that day," he explains.  "I must have been about seven years old and my dad wanted to teach me how to drive the tractor."  He laughs a little.  "I was so excited I nearly ripped the kitchen door off its hinges for the umpteenth time."

I smile at the idea of an excited and happy seven-year-old Clark.  I wish that the Clark sitting next to me could feel the same right now.

"I was so nervous," he continues.  "Dad told me 'It's alright son, once you have the gas and the steering wheel figured out, everything will come naturally.'  Surely, enough once I got behind the wheel, I became more comfortable.  I felt powerful, like I could conquer the world with just that tractor.  I think that by the time I was done riding around in it, Dad had to fill it with gas."

He tears his eyes away from the TV and looks at me.  Seeing the pain in those baby blues I love so much breaks my heart.  I reach out and touch his cheek tenderly.  He closes his eyes as he lets me touch him.  

"My dad was always there to help me and as my powers started coming, I couldn't have gotten through all of it without him," he say proudly.

"The strength I think I was always a little comfortable with because I have had it for as long as I can remember.  I had enough trouble with already, but I remember, when I was six and I discovered just how fast I could run, he helped me figure out how to control it.  Mom had already helped me learn not to be scared of all these strange happening to me, but Dad..." Clark chuckled again, "he helped me figure out how to control how fast I ran and where I stopped so that I didn't end up where I didn't want to be."

"How did he do it?" I ask, sitting up straighter.  I already know everything that Clark can do, but I don't really know exactly how he learned to do all of it.  

"Well first he had me run in circles with him just to help me figure out how to control how fast I was going," he replies.  "It was annoying and boring at first, because we were just jogging in figure eights around the house and barn.  It was not pretty at first.  I ran through the walls of the house and the barn a few times."  I take a moment to glance around the house and laugh a little.  

"I guess the Kent house is a bit patchier than I thought," I tease.  Thankfully, he didn't burst into tears.  

"You have no idea, my beautiful reporter," he says with a smile.  I love it when he calls me that.  Not only because I know how much he admires my love for journalism, but also because I love being thought of as his.  I wish Jonathan had lived to see me become Mrs. Sullivan Kent.  

"So once I finally got controlling my speed down, next came trying to control where I ended up and what I was doing," oh my, this should be interesting.  "When he found out I could run faster than a bullet, he grabbed his shotgun and had me run and catch all the pellets from the shotgun shell.  At the same time, I learned that bullets could bounce off of me.  After that, he basically sent me on a scavenger hunt all around Smallville with a map of where he placed little items.  He wanted me to be home within the hour."  He smiles.  "I got home in forty-five minutes and I had found a few tools, some snacks, and my mom's sewing needles."  He frowns playfully.  "My mom was so furious that she couldn't find those and when she realized what Dad had done, she made him spend the night on the couch."

I laugh with him.  Martha is a sweet woman, but I have only seen her get angry a handful of times in my life and they were not pretty.

"A bunch of my other powers continued to manifest especially while we were in high school from my x-ray vision, to my heat vision, to my superhearing, my dad was always there to help me figure out how to use them.  With my x-ray vision, Mom and Dad didn't help to much and I mostly figured that one out on my own.  My heat vision--" Clark blushes furiously.

"Um, how did you discover that one?" I ask, not sure I want to know the answer.

"During sex-ed with Lex's _first_ ill-fated marriage," replies Clark in a defeated tone.

I grimace as I remember that day.  The room seemingly spontaneaously caught fire ending a very uncomfortable class.  Realization dawns on me.

"So, you're telling me that your heat vision is somehow linked to sexual arousement?" I sum up.  Clark says nothing.  No wonder the barn caught fire when they had sex.  Still the best I ever had.  Even if it was only the second time in my whole life.  It was more meaningful.

"And my superhearing I discovered while I was blind," Clark finishes.  That makes sense.  He lost his sight and given how heightened his senses are, it must have manifested.  "That was not a comfortable experience and I think it was part of the reason I was so short with you."  His tone is apologetic, but it is still a bad memory.  "I heard everything all at once and I couldn't make it stop so I figured I try to focus it somehow.  Mom and Dad were worried because I turned on every machine in the barn, but once I explained everything, Dad turned everything on again and all he did was whisper, 'Son, focus on my voice.'"  Clark takes my hands in his and gazes at me through a sad smile.  "He helped me not be afraid of what I am.  And now I wish I could hear his voice."

Clark looks down into his lap.  Fresh tears form in his eyes and I close the distance between us and remove my hands from his so that I can wrap my arms around him, resting my cheek against his shoulder as he sobs.

"I'm lost Chloe," he whimpers.  "I don't know what to do and I need help.  My dad is gone and I need his help.  Just one more time, I need his help.  If I could just hold his hand, feel his hands on my shoulders, and let him tell me that everything is going to be okay.

"I just want to see his smile.  Listen to him scold me.  Do something I shouldn't do just see his scowl.  I even miss riding on his shoulders sometimes."

There was another day I would have cocked my head and reminded him that he was way too tall to ride on Jonathan Kent's shoulders, but not today. 

"You remember that party I had at my house freshman year?" he asks me as some of his sobs turn to giggles.

"Yeah?" I reply cautiously through tears of my own.

"The house was a mess and I had no idea when my parents were coming home so I used my superspeed to clean up.  Took me five seconds flat," he added smugly.  "I was feeling satisfied with myself, but then I realized that my parents were home the whole time.  Upstairs."

My eyes widen.  "What did they do?"

Clark gently breaks away from me and gets up from the couch.  I watch him as he positions himself beside the stairs and leans on it.  Through his tear-streaked face, he manages a scowl and claps very slowly.  Yes, very Jonathan Kent.

He laughs and I laugh with him as he comes back and joins me on the couch.  

"Sometimes, I would love to just tear up the house just to hear him clapping at me like that again," he says through fresh sobs.  I hold him and we are silent for a few minutes.  I want to help him through this.  I want to guide him through this patch of woods he's lost in.  I love him more than life itself, but I realize that I might never fill that Jonathan Kent-sized hole in his heart, not completely.  But I want to put a smile on his face again.  I get an idea.

I carefully remove myself from Clark and stand up.  

"Wh-what are you doing?" he asks.

Through my own tear-stained eyes, I smile silkily and I walk over to the mantelpiece and knock over a stack of books that was on top of it.  

Clark's eyes widen.  "Chloe, _what are you doing_?"

"I'm making a mess," I reply sultrily as I lean forward across the coffe table and knock everything off of it with a swipe of my arm.  Now Clark is alarmed.

"Chloe, stop!" he yells, getting up and blocking my path.  His look is so pained and I try to warm up his features with a smile.  

"Clark, I know you're in pain, but you need to get past this somehow," I explain to him gently, cupping his face.  "I don't expect you to go back to being the happy, goofy, awkward hulk of a man that I love in one day, but I need this as much as you do."  I gesture to the house.  "Help me make a mess.  Please?" I add with that nose-wrinkle and pouty face I know he loved.

He is still crying, but, after a heavy sigh, he smiles a little.  "Okay, as long we don't break anything."

I smile dangerously.  "I'll do my best," I promise in a sexy whisper.  

Over the next ten minutes, we tear up the house.  The couch ended being overturned.  Pots and pans and silverwares littered the kitchen floor.  Books were strewn everywhere.  Videos and DVDs were tossed unceremoniously behind our heads.  Laundry was thrown all over the place.  We stay out of Jonathan and Martha's room, but I help Clark turn his room upside down.  The mattresses were gently thrown off the bedframe.  The floor became misplaced beneath Clark's clothes and some of his things.   

When it's all done, Clark and I stand in the living room and inspect the house.  

"Mom's gonna murder me," he whines, but I see him smiling.  Martha had to go to Washington to take care of Jonathan's senate duties and she was going to be gone for almost a week.  "Wait, Chlo, there's something we forgot to do."

I frown.  "What did we miss?  The house is a wreck!"  We even managed to break a couple of things, but at least they were lightbulbs.  

Clark smiles as he takes my hand and leads me to the kitchen.  He turns a chair over and sits me down.  Then he opens up the fridge and emerges with some leftover cake from Jonathan's funeral reception.  I give him a questioning look as he sets the chocolate cake with white icing in front of me.  

"Wha--?" before I can finish my question, Clark superspeeds behind me and smashes my face in the cake.  I squeal into the--very tasty--cake.

"The finishing touch," announces Clark.

He releases my head and I raise my face.  When I wipe off some of the icing from my eyes, he is shaking with giggles.

"Clark...Kent..." I growl slowly and quietly.  "That...was... _not_...FUNNY!"

"Are you trying to scowl at me?" he asks with mock-fright.  "I can't tell because there's something on your face."

I scream ferociously and toss what is left of the cake at him.  He gets out of the way just before it hits him and it lands on the window behind him.  My eyes widen. 

"Good thing that platter was tinfoil," laughs Clark.  

I don't share his amusement as I get up and try to smack him.  He easily evades me and ends up behind me with his powerful arms locked around my waist.  I thrash in them, but my thrashes are quickly subdues when his lips land on mine.  He catches me by surprise, but soon my mouth opens and my tongue teases his as I moan against his mouth.  

My hand reaches up and cups his cheek and I hold him to my face as his kisses become more fierce.  I respond with my own fierceness and my tongue darts in and out and I explore the contours of his mouth.  When we finally break apart, we are both breathless.

"Wow," he breathes.  "That was the tastiest kiss I ever had."

"Yeah," I agree, just as breathless.  "I should probably get going, I have a ten-page paper to write."

"You mean the one that is not due till next Wednesday?" asks Clark, raising an eyebrow.

I roll my eyes.  "Lana told you, didn't she?"

Clark shrugged.  He bends down and starts tracing the line of my neck with his lips, leaving burning kisses in their wake.  "Are you sure I can't convince my fiancee to stay a little while?" he whispers into my skin.  "Your face is still covered in cake, maybe I can help clean it off?"

His lips are making all the muscles in my body turn to jelly as my eyes roll back into my head.  His hands slide down from my waist and I instinctively rub against him as the tips of his fingers slip beneath my jeans.  I moan.  "Maybe I can stay a little while longer," I surrender.


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can intimacy really fix Clark's broken heart? Warning: this chapter earns the "Explicit" rating

Clark's tongue flicks in and out as he licks away the little bits of cake and icing off of my face.  I stifle a giggle as it reminds me of a puppy.  I am not sure that Clark would appreciate being referred to as such.  My back is still pressed against him and his fingers make little circles into the skin just inside my jeans, causing involuntary gasps of pleasure to escape my lips.  I have to reach up so that I can rake my fingers through his hair with at least one of my hands.  

 _God, why did he have to be so tall and me so short?_  I whine to myself.  At least Clark has enough sense to bend down a little.  When his lips finally touch mine, I kiss him fiercely.  My tongue flicks out and I tease his lips, savoring the slight taste of icing upon them.  His tongue juts out and is teasing my lips as well and soon our tongues are in each others' mouths, tangling in on each other and sending sparks of pleasure all the way down my body.  

Clark's hands slide out from my jeans and I almost whimper at the loss.  But he doesn't remove his hands.  They slide up my body and the tips of his fingers meet the edges of my breasts.  I wordlessly beg him to grasp them, but his hands slide up further, coming to a stop at my shoulders.  Our lips break apart and Clark spins me around and stops for a minute.  I suck in a breath as he stares down at me.  

There is desire in those baby blues, but it does little to hide the deep sadness underneath.  His hand reaches up and cups my face.  He strokes me gently, loving with his thumb.  My face must be very sticky as his gentle strokes are robbed of any fluidity.  

His eyes become wet again and fresh tears spill down his cheeks.  I stand on my toes and, feeling as wicked as I do loving, I run my tongue across his cheeks, collecting the salt of his tears.  I continue to trace the muscles of his face with my lips and tongue, wondering if the feel would burn away his sorrows.  A moan rises out of him as I continue and I yelp as he grabs me by the waist and lifts me off my feet.  

I wrap my legs around him and dig my fingers into his hair as my lips slam down upon his.  He walks slowly away from the kitchen and even though my eyes are closed, I am guessing that we are in the living room.  I feel him dip down a bit and my body settles onto the couch cushions.  I fight back a laugh as it turns out the cushions ended up being between the couch and the coffee table.  He settles onto me, but props himself up on his elbows so as not to crush me under his weight.  Once again I am reminded how small I am compared to him.  He could crush me like a bug if he wasn't careful and he knows that.  Though sometimes he takes his sense of carefulness to an annoyingly high level.

His lips break free from mine and they travel lower, settling on the indent of my neck.  A shuddering moan rises from my throat and my sense of restraint takes a holiday.  I tilt my head back a little bit to offer him better access of the sensitive skin there. I caress the contours of his ear with my tongue as my hands seek the buttons of his shirt and I clumsily unbutton each of them.  His hands slide to the buttons of my blouse and soon all that is between are our jeans and my lacy bra.  

My fingers dig into the muscles of his back.  His skin can stop bullets and shatter metal, but it gives enough to the pressure of my hands to release sounds of pleasure from us both.  His fingers slide over the hills of my ribs and I feel little jolts of electricity fly through my body.  I respond my dipping my hands into his jeans, wanting to feel the toned curves of his ass.  Before long, we are fumbling at each other's jeans and, in a blur of movement it seems, we are both stark naked.  I feel a slight chill at the lack of clothing, but Clark's body is like a furnace providing enough heat that I could curl into his arms and not need for anything else.

Clark's mouth closes over one of my nipples and I cry out in pleasure as his tongue plays with the rigid tip.  I whimper as it seems like it takes forever for him to move to the other one, giving it the same bit of attention.  I arch my back as he does so, moving myself deeper into his mouth.  While he offers my breasts plenty of attention, his hands travel all over my body, cleverly avoiding the area between my thighs and I begin to thrash uncontrollably.  I almost want to scream at him to slip inside me, but it doesn't seem like that it is going to happen.  I decide to take control. 

I push him over and I settle on top of him.  My eyes roam over his body for a minute.  How can someone be so beautiful and be too much of a prude to see it as someone like me would?  I see the embers of his eyes light up a little and I know I am as beautiful to him as he is to me.  He reaches up to cup my breasts, but I lightly push his hands away.  I bend down and my lips brush over his chest.  Little beads of sweat form on our bodies and they become more slick, somewhat allowing me to explore his body without much resistance.  I trail kisses in the wake of my exploration and I stop to suck on his nipple a little bit, causing him to shudder. Encouraged, my tongue teases the tip of it and a loud groan rises out of Clark.  

Perhaps he is surrendering to me more than I am to him.  

My lips move downward, but just as I reach the beginnings of his manhood, he grips my shoulders.

"Chloe..." his voice is somewhere between warning and pleading all interlaced with hurt.  I stare up at him.  I can read him like a news article and I realize that maybe now is not the time for this amount of foreplay.  Our first time together, Clark almost brought me to the brink of madness with his foreplay and I did my best to do the same, but this doesn't feel as much...fun as it did then.  

My body slides upward and I guide him into me.  We share deep, shuddering intake of breath as our bodies mold into one and I writhe on top of him, desperate for release.  He rocks his hips and soon our bodies are moving together in hot counterpoint.  Clark squeezes his eyes shut and I arch my back, knowing he is as close as I am to coming.  

"Chloe..." he sobs.

"Don't..." I gasp, grasping his hands.  He squeezes back a little beyond the point of comfort, but he doesn't crush them.  I trust him and I think it's that level of trust that stops him from hurting me.

As our bodies move faster and faster, I cry out and my body soars as heat bursts from Clark's eyes and sets the fireplace ablaze as we reach our climax.  

Panting, I slump against him and rest my hands on his shoulders.  We are silent for a minute or two and once my arms to regain a little bit of strength, I prop myself up on my elbows and gaze down into Clark's eyes.  

In the glow of the fire, they look far away.  It's almost like his is looking for something.  Any arousement that might have flooded my body a few minutes ago melt away, being replaced by sorrow.

"No clapping.  No scowl.  No scolding.  No reprimands." The more he goes through this list, the more I see him crack just a little more.  It's good that he is grieving, but seeing my man so broken...I am reminded just how much his heart is a house of cards.  One wrong movement, a gust of wind, a tremor...it comes crashing down into a lousy pile.  "My dad is gone."

And with those four words, I settle into him again and grasp his shoulders tightly as I sob.  His arms slide around me as he sobs harder than I have ever heard him sob.  He must feel as weak as I do as we lie on the cushions.  I lift my head and look around.

Did I make a horrible mistake?  Did talking Clark into making a mess only sink him farther down into his misery.  Did I just remind Clark just how this house is a wreck without the brightness and joy that is--was--Jonathan Kent?  

"Are you going to leave me?" my eyes widen in surprise as he looks at me.  Part of me wants to smile and tell him that he is stuck with me, but his eyes are pleading, lost, lonely.  Afraid.  

"No," I breathe.  His arms around me become a little tighter and our bodies shake in the throes of sorrow.  "I am here, Clark," I manage through my broken voice.  "And I am not going anywhere."  

As our sobs mold together, I pray that one day...whether it takes days, weeks, or months...I can help Clark be whole again.  


End file.
